Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/610

604 girl had been one of a dozen daughters.

There was another individual who looked on quietly too, seeing more than the young lady, or his master, or anybody else suspected. Donald Ross had vowed eternal devotion, and had already made decided inroads on her heart. She was frequently with him in the outhouse, where he employed his leisure in busking flies for the streams and lochs, or knocking up grouse-boxes for the forthcoming shooting-season. It was Donald who led her pony on expeditions into the hills, and found endless subjects of conversation with which to entertain her. He dwelt particularly on the reminiscences of those tenants of the Glen who had been shipped to the antipodes in the days of her grandfather. He revelled in the legend of the witch of Funachan, who had been notoriously in the habit of night-riding the evil-minded hill-folks in their nightmares. But she listened to him most heedfully when he would change the subject to the pair of cousins who were her constant companions. Both the old keeper and his young mistress were inclined to hero-worship; but it was hard to say which of the young men had the best of it with them. On the whole, perhaps, the stars fought in their courses for Venables. Donald would go back again and again to the adventure on the hills above Loch Rosque, giving, as was only fair, the precedence in the story to Leslie.

"It's surely a sad peety, Miss Grace, that both of them were born in the South; but there's not very many of us Highland people would have done what Mr Leslie did. I would have thought myself twice – ay, or perhaps more times – before I would have gone down over that rock, even for Glenconan himself. I would have gone, I hope; though to me it would have been certain destruction, for I'm neither so young nor yet so light as I used to be – and Mr Leslie is not that light, either. But Peter, he will be telling me that Mr Leslie just stepped over as if he had been setting his foot in the ferry-boat below there. Many a man might do that, and yet lose his head; but Mr Leslie was as cool – ay, as cool as a shepherd in the drifts, or an otter in December. Maybe Peter is a bit of a fool; but his eyes are as good as another's."

So far, so well. Donald would honestly pay the tribute of admiration demanded by Leslie's coolness and courage. But when his conversation turned from the saviour to the saved, it was then that he gave way to heartfelt eloquence.

"But after all, Miss Grace, it was worth while chancing something for Mr Venables. He's a fine young lad that; ay, he's a very fine young lad. If he did lose his head a bit on the cliff, as Peter says, it was no wonder. If it was not that he likit the sport so well, he would never have chanced his neck for that ill-smelling beast of a goat. I would not have gone up among the rocks there myself for anything less than a hart; but the Southern gentlemen have strange fancies. Mr Leslie is a fine gentleman too, as Glenconan's nephew and your cousin ought to be, Miss Grace. But he'll sit down in the heather when we would be after a stalk; and I've known him drop off and go asleep, and never waken again, till the deer was stalked and shot and to be gralloched. But as for Mr Venables, when once he has set eyes on his stag, he'll bristle up and settle down to the stalk like a sleuth-hound. It's little he'll think